


Sooty Glass

by Szcay



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 20:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9289124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Szcay/pseuds/Szcay
Summary: Henry's dearest friend needs his help. Victor doesn't make it easy.Could be read as gen or slash. Set during the events of the show.





	

Five years. Five years and nothing. Five years of trying to bury his disappointment, his sense of abandonment, his pain, and every other feeling below a façade of cold indifference. Five years and then a letter. Five years and now he stood here, in front of a worn door in a rickety house with dirty, broken people loitering on the stairs below.

He knocked, called out, slightly annoyed, a bit angry and deep down scared. The door opened and there he stood, Victor Frankenstein, in the flesh before him. Inviting him into his dirty abode, to drink tea from chipped cups served with trembling hands.

Oh, how his light had dimmed. No, not dimmed. Even now it glowed behind those glossy eyes, but faintly, like the flame of a gaslight trapped behind sooty glass. Victor had turned into sooty glass before his eyes, at the same time dimmer and more translucent. Henry longed to wipe the soot of morphine, sleep deprivation and heartache from his friend’s eyes and let him shine at his full brilliance.

Henry forgave Victor almost completely within moments of laying eyes on him again. Almost completely, apart from deep down in his heart where every betrayal, abandonment and slight lay. As Victor told his story Henry took stock of his trembling hands, the sweat on his brow, his dilated pupils. As Victor continued Henry just listened. Another man would have dismissed his story for madness, but Henry saw the truth shine out of Victor’s red-rimmed eyes.

As Victor showed him the laboratory where his miracles had been performed Henry felt the sharp sting of envy. There had always been an undercurrent of competition between them, two bright minds challenging each other. As Henry worked in his own laboratory he would occasionally imagine what Victor might say of his own successes, the widening of his eyes and smile on his lips. Now Henry’s work seemed insignificant and so far from completion in comparison to Victor’s.

He felt so far from Victor himself, who had given his heart to Lily, his body to morphine and his mind to mad desperation. Victor who wanted Henry to help him kill a woman. Victor who turned sharp-tongued and biting at his refusal to do so. Henry bit his lip and swallowed his anger. But he could prove himself the better, get the upper hand and sate some vengeful desire to succeed where Victor failed. When he offered Victor to tame Lily that was part of it. The other part was because in those burning addict’s eyes Henry saw that if he didn’t help him, Victor would turn his back on him and burn up alone. Leaving Henry alone. He offered his help entirely for selfish reasons.

 

He felt the sting of envy again when Victor quickly grasped the theories of his work, building on memories of their experiments at school, then took them and improved on them. Dishevelled and restless from his morphine craving he solved problems that Henry had spent many months contemplating.

As they worked together Henry wondered at how easy it was for them to fall into the same dynamic as before. The same and different. Victor was scathing, driven by a desperate fever and did not seem to see Henry half the time. Henry was colder, he had learned to hide his feelings, stifle his anger in a way he had not during their schooling. The thrill of having a mind to match his own, to have someone to bounce his ideas off was the same. The more time he spent with Victor, the more he felt himself thawing. Victor slid behind his defences in a way no one else could. He found he did not mind it so much.

Sometimes he would visit Victor at home. (But he never invited Victor to his, never even told him where he lived. Not that Victor asked.) Sometimes they would argue, sometimes keep conversations that reminded Henry of the old times, animated conversations where Victor sometimes would answer with a smile.

Sometimes when Henry came calling Victor was slow to answer the door. Once when he opened he seemed distant and his speech was slow. As Henry stepped inside his eyes immediately found the case of morphine lying open on a table, a syringe empty on the floor. He spun Victor around and grabbed his shoulder. Lifted his eyelids as Victor stumbled against him. Took his pulse at the neck as Victor’s hands were busy trying to push away. He chastised him wearily as he helped Victor to lay back in his bed. He sat next to him, held his wrist at the pulse point and watched Victor’s chest rise and fall in sleep. Victor’s breathing did not stop and when he came to he was quietly embarrassed for Henry having seen him in his drugged state.

 

The time came. Together they had managed to create an elixir that would give Victor his Lily back. Henry waited at the reins of the carriage as Victor and Gray lifted the unconscious woman inside. He watched as they chained her to the chair. Whatever Victor saw in her, Henry could not see it. She seemed undeserving of Victor. This woman who had turned Victor into a thin shell of sooty glass around a burning flame of desperation. Utterly unworthy.

She asked Victor to dismiss Henry as if he was an assistant and it stung. He cautioned Victor against being alone with her, but Victor heeded this cold, staring woman. As Henry made his rounds he tried to keep that sense of accomplishment. Tried to see these poor souls that he soon would cure of their dementia, think of the recognition of his work. His thoughts slipped back to Victor, and he could not shake a sense of dread. Henry forced himself to keep his pace measured as he turned on his heel and went back.

As he returned to the heavy door of his laboratory he did not know if he feared opening it to Victor dead on the floor or Victor and his Lily in a passionate embrace. He opened it to Victor sitting on the floor next to an empty chair and a full syringe.

Henry lashed out, furious at Victor for wasting their work, for condemning _him_ for the work they had done. But as Victor spoke Henry realised it was just as well Lily was gone. Victor seemed to have a calm about him. Beneath the sooty glass the fire did not burn so desperately any longer. The glass seemed to clear. Henry and Victor had never seen eye to eye on everything, had always had their arguments. When Victor had left last time, they had said a solemn goodbye and made promises of writing. As Henry walked out the door he thought, _I won’t have to wait five years to see you again, old friend._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. This is not beta-read and I'm not a native speaker. If you spot any mistakes I will be grateful if you let me know. If anything is unclear or difficult to understand I will be grateful if you let me know. If you read this and think "I could write something similar, but better and longer!" please do, there should be more Victor/Henry fics out there.


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